New Delhi: ‘What is love?’ Haddaway had plaintively demanded years ago, and it's a question that still rankles in peoples' minds. With a hope to solve this conundrum to a great extent, international dating app OkCupid has launched its latest digital campaign titled ‘Love is…’ that reclaims love for Indian millennials. The campaign is a conceptual take on love that is unique to your individual personality, values and aspirations. It recognises and celebrates that every person is seeking a different kind of love – from romantic dates to sharing memes, and that uniqueness is valid, accepted and deserves to be celebrated. 

The campaign draws insight from user responses to over 3,000 questions on the app, breaking stereotypes about what relationships mean for dating Indian millennials. A large majority are in fact hopeful romantics with 88 per cent men and 87 per cent women wanting to find love, or have love find them. They are open to finding serendipity of love on a dating app like OkCupid with 61 per cent men and 57 per cent women saying yes to falling in love with someone they meet online. Surprisingly, 68 per cent don’t even believe marriage is mandatory for people in love. When it comes to the kind of relationship they want, 72 per cent believe traditional gender roles, such as men being default heads and not househusbands, or women taking care of chores and children or changing names, have no place in their lives. While, they might believe in love and its serendipity, the kind of love each Indian millennial wants is completely unique. OkCupid’s ‘Love Is…’ takes these insights and brings them to life to showcase how every person is seeking a different kind of love, one that they deserve to have. 

Developed by Taproot Dentsu-Mumbai, the ‘Love is...’ campaign includes four short films as well as a VoxPop. The VoxPop is a fun dipstick video of single Indian millennials as they express their honest views of what love means to each of them. In true millennial style, the answers vary from drawing similarities to food, farts and fairytales. This experiment is an attempt to reflect the diversity of love and what it means for different people spotlighting what essentially makes love and relationships so special and bespoke. The four campaign films also use these insights along with user responses to questions on the app to articulate what love is to different people. 

The first film “Love Is... Working Overtime Together” tells the story of a couple who are career driven but won’t make a compromise on love. It draws from the insight that 88 per cent millennials are looking forward to both love and professional growth, refusing the long held notion that you can only have one. 

“Love Is... all About The Little Things” is inspired by the 87 per cent users on OkCupid who have expressed the importance of everyday romance in their lives. It reminds those looking for a relationship built on the little expressions of love that will find what they’re looking for even if everybody else is telling them otherwise. 

“Love Is... Living In The Moment Together” was born from well-meaning but untrue advice that giving up spontaneity is the road to adulthood and thus a meaningful relationship. This film encourages you to be unapologetically you and find a partner who loves that about you. 

The final film “Love Is... A Partnership” was born from the shifting gender roles in Indian relationships where men and women both play equal roles as homemakers and breadwinners, building a relationship of equality and partnership. This will go live by later today. 

OkCupid India marketing director Anukool Kumar says, “Love is not one size fits all and that’s exactly what OkCupid India’s campaign ‘Love is...’ celebrates. The very fact that most singles are being told that they have to choose between a career and love or romance and practicality is archaic to us at OkCupid! This campaign celebrates love in the way that an Indian millennial craves it, breaking away from the cringey unattainable version that has been fed to us for generations.” 

Taproot Dentsu Mumbai ECD Pallavi Chakravarti says, “What is love? Now if we knew the right answer to that one, we’d be Gods not mortals. So together with team OkCupid, we agreed to do the next best thing for our new campaign – acknowledge that there is no one right answer. But no matter how one defines love, chances are they’ll find what they’re looking for on this app.”

The campaign was featured on OkCupid’s YouTube, Instagram and Facebook pages. The first film went live on 27 November 2020 and has received an overwhelmingly positive response, with over five million views in just a week.